Maria Trip was 20 years old in 1639, from an extremely wealthy Amsterdam family, and she could afford Rembrandt. Standing in front of her portrait at the Rijksmuseum, my honest first thought …
- Amsterdam
The King Who Didn’t Stay: Louis Bonaparte’s Rooms in Amsterdam’s Royal Palace
by Bubblyby Bubbly 8 min readI have already written about the Royal Palace on Dam Square as the town hall it was built to be: the marble Citizens’ Hall, Atlas carrying the heavens, the Vierschaar where death …
Dolls’ houses take me straight back to my childhood and my Barbie dolls’ houses. I never imagined they would end up in a national museum. I never knew they were a thing …
- Amsterdam
The Dutch Golden Age, Explained Through the Paintings I Saw
by Bubblyby Bubbly 12 min readI met the Dutch Golden Age twice before I understood it. The first time was in London, in December 2025, in the National Gallery‘s Dutch rooms. The second was in Amsterdam in …
Two days in Amsterdam sounds tight. It is not, as long as the plan is about choosing well rather than seeing everything. The city helps. The old centre around Dam Square and …
- Amsterdam
Top Museums in Amsterdam: The Ones I Visited and the Ones on My List
by Bubblyby Bubbly 8 min readAmsterdam is a museum city, and my week there was built around them. Van Gogh was the reason I came. Rembrandt, a royal palace and a former brewery filled the rest of …
The Night Watch set the tone for my whole day at the Rijksmuseum, and it left me with enormous respect for the genius that was Rembrandt. So it was a surprise to …
- Amsterdam
The Fault in Our Stars in Amsterdam: The Bench, the Canals and the Anne Frank House
by Bubblyby Bubbly 6 min readTickets for the Anne Frank House had sold out weeks before my trip, so the closest I came was the far side of the Prinsengracht, looking at the pavement packed with people …
- Amsterdam
Spot the Mouse: Hidden Creatures in the Rijksmuseum’s Still Lifes
by Bubblyby Bubbly 9 min readI have always been intrigued by still life paintings. I had heard they were where young artists started out, learning colour, light and texture on a bowl of fruit or a jar …
- Amsterdam
5 Days in Amsterdam: A Slower Itinerary with Tulips and Windmills
by Bubblyby Bubbly 7 min readThree days in Amsterdam covers the big sights. Five days lets them breathe. There is time to see the Rijksmuseum without rushing the Vermeers, to give Keukenhof the full day it deserves, …
Amsterdam‘s Red Light District, known in Dutch as De Wallen, is one of those places almost every visitor to Amsterdam wants to see, and walking tours of it are very popular. So …